Luckily in the US an accused isn't required to prove the absence of a given intent just because a third party believes that intent might have been there.

Suppose you point a gun at someone and shoot someone. There are witnesses of you having done so, and of you being alert and sane at the time. But the prosecution cannot find any evidence of your intent to hurt that person. Would you not be convicted for having shot that person?

Contrived strawman aside, this is exactly why there are different legal definitions for murder in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees, as well as manslaughter. And different punishments for each based.

In this example, it's probably open-and-shut 2nd degree but the prosecution now has to prove that you premeditated this if they want to go for 1st degree (IANAL). They don't get to just say "it was clearly premeditated" and then put the onus of proof on the defendant.

Oh, ok, certainly, there can be different levels of gravity for the same offense. But it's not the case of "you haven't positively proven intent so no conviction".

That depends on whether the fact you shot someone is a disputed fact in the case.

you can't have direct evidence of someones alertness or state of mind, only circumstantial.

the direct evidence from witness testimony is only needed if the shooting is disputed.

assuming the shooting is proven, with no evidence of intent, you can't have murder 1, and likely can't have murder 2 either and are probably stuck with involuntary manslaughter.

obviously it depends on the state.

however even manslaughter requires some requisite knowledge and intention of what you are doing - but proving something like insanity or incapacity is usually on the defense to prove.

> and likely can't have murder 2 either and are probably stuck with involuntary manslaughter.

Can you refer to an explanation of this? Or to some case law explaining the non-attribution of volition?

> cannot find any evidence of your intent to hurt that person

in CA second degree murder is the unlawful killing of a human being that is done without deliberation and premeditation, but with malice aforethought (or with an intent to commit an act)

if there is literally zero evidence available as to intent, it cant be murder.

Culpability and the exact crime actually depends a LOT on your mental state and what intent you supposedly had. Let's start with some basic cases and get weirder:

* Intent to kill or harm someone - murder

* Intent to pull the trigger, but not to kill or hurt anyone - manslaughter

* No intent to pull the trigger (eg accidental discharge - maybe the trigger pull on the gun is very light and you put a little too much pressure on it) - possibly manslaughter on recklessness grounds if you knew there were people around or the person was there, but also maybe a lower crime (or not a crime at all) if you were being careful with the gun and got unlucky about where it was pointing when it discharged

* Not mentally competent to understand that you might be hurting someone or that hurting someone is wrong - not guilty because of insanity

* Intent to kill the person in self-defense and the person is intending to kill or harm you - not guilty of any crime due to self defense (a murder, but not a crime)

* Intent to kill someone else who is attacking you in self-defense, but you missed - also self defense (intent follows the bullet)

There are probably 10+ more other major scenarios to cover here with different outcomes. This is partly why when someone kills someone else with a gun, the prosecution tries to hit them with murder, manslaughter, and reckless handling of a deadly weapon. They don't know which one will stick, but they can be pretty sure that a jury will find one kind of intent.

They're required to prove absence of a given intent in the sense of "to the jury's satisfaction."

If the prosecution says "Here are all the things that indicate intent" and the defense says "I'm not going to respond to any of those, because none of them prove intent" then that's rolling some pretty loaded dice with a jury.